Now a new poll from We Ask America suggests that their fears were well-founded: It has Governor Walker beating Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett by a twelve-point margin, 54 to 42%.

Check out Real Clear Politics (an excellent source generally for aggregations and averages of political polling data): Barrett’s numbers go up and down, but at no point has he cracked 50%. Meanwhile the race is trending strongly in Walker’s favor over time, as is made clear when I graph RCP’s data (click on picture for big, clear version):

—or even clearer if you zoom in on the last couple of months:

Well, OK, you think, but that’s sort of comparing apples and oranges—Real Clear Politics is aggregating polls from different organizations with different methods. Isn’t a “trend over time” meaningless if you keep changing pollsters?

I’m glad you asked! For your viewing pleasure, I’ve connected each set of dots from a common polling organization. It looks slightly less dramatic, but the trends in Walker’s favor are still clearly visible, with opinion shifting most steeply in his favor most recently:

The election is on June 5th, less than two weeks away. I declare Barrett toast.

argues that Walker’s reforms are working:
“The unions’ battle against Walker’s reforms has rested on the argument that the changes would damage public services beyond repair. The truth, however, is that the reforms not only are saving money already; they’re doing so with little disruption to services.”

Update (May 25th, 2012): I notice that Allah Pundit at Hot Air has also covered this latest We Ask America poll, with analysis, a New York Times blogger all but admitting it’s over, and a wonderful-awful ’70s ABBA song.